A non-profit organization dedicated to the eradication of all student loan debt through activism, education, and legislation;
because student loan debt is dangerous to the US economy and to the health and well-being of individual Americans and their families.
CRYN JOHANNSEN, Founder & Executive Director

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Helping Homebuyers? Ignoring us?

President Obama and your wise Administration, if you don't want to be another Hoover, I suggest you help the indentured educated class, too. Did you see that article that just came out? The one that states that student loan debt has now surpassed that of credit card debt? Yeah. It's a crisis. DO SOMETHING TO HELP US.

We're not even helping them. Obama's much-hyped HAMP program has been shown to be an utter debacle that hasn't helped anybody and has a built-in loophole that benefits (surprise, surprise) the mortgagor, not the home"owner."

So, no, nobody is being helped. And rather than further splitting the ranks of the downtrodden (as 90 percent of us are, or will be) with petty infighting, it might behoove us to all band together against the ongoing destruction of the American middle class.

He's a lame duck whether its warranted or not. The conservative right has usurped public opinion via the teabaggers (why are Repubs so much better at this!!!)

We need a strong leader. There is no way Obama is oblivious to what is going on in education. If he is willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of students' lives to "compromise" with politicians or improve our "macro" education stats he doesnt deserve to be re-elected.

There are several things that could be done that either would be budget-neutral or actually reduce the deficit but help borrowers. The colleges don't want any time spent on policy discussions related to "past students," i.e., existing borrowers.

Several of the ideas on this site would cost money and would require cuts elsewhere to fund them -- particularly ideas that would impact the property interests of the holders of existing loans.

Well, if policy discussions don't wish to go in that direction, then this Administration will be facing an angry group of voters. I have been under the impression, based upon research, that there are numbers that show that certain measures to help current debtors would actually benefit taxpayers. Why don't you let us know who you are, so we can have a more open conversation? You are clearly an informed person who disagrees with my posts and this site. If you'd prefer to not post here, but contact me offline (i.e., via email), please feel free. My address ccrynjohannsen@gmail.com. I'd be happy to keep our conversation confidential.

The complete lack of interest in consolidation from policymakers -- many of whom took donations from loan consolidation firms in the past and were big boosters -- is certainly frustrating, now that getting the word out to borrowers is needed more than ever.

Without consolidation firms deluging borrowers with phone calls, e-mails, pop-up ads and postal mailers, DoEd (direct loan) is the only game in town. (Starting 7/1/10, only Direct Loan can issue student, parent and consolidation federal education loans, but consolidation lenders were essentially out of the game by early in 2008 due to the international credit crisis -- their means of raising capital from investors were far more complex than traditional lenders and far more dependent on the international credit bubble. FFELP lenders that did both consols and nonconsols shifted to nonconsols during 2008.) There seems to be a big concern, in part due to what happened in 1997, that, if DoEd actually begins getting the word out to borrowers and financial news reporters that this is the best time ever to consolidate, then its systems will be overwhelmed with applications and could result in heavy backlogs and delays.

Cryn Johannsen

Cryn Johannsen, Founder and Executive Director of All Education Matters, Inc., is the author Solving the Student Loan Crisis: Dreams, Diplomas, and a Lifetime of Debt(New Insights Press, 2016; available now on Amazon inpaperback andKindle).

She has spent many years in academic environments, giving her an insider's understanding of the varying forms of educational institutions and how they function. Ms. Johannsen worked for an academic publishing company, but now advocates for individuals who are struggling or unable to pay off their student loan debt on Capitol Hill.

In addition to her previous employment, Ms. Johannsen has been a student at multiple levels at multiple institutions, beginning at a community college, graduating with honors from the University of Kansas, and receiving MAs from both the University of Chicago and Brown University (where she also participated in an exchange scholar program with Harvard). She is an experienced researcher and instructor, and has focused her own education on the study of History and the Social Sciences.

Ms. Johannsen is available to give talks and do workshops on this critical topic.

Ms. Johannsen's book has been reviewed by the New York Review of Books in Rana Foroohar's article "How the Financing of May Lead to Leader." In addition, intellectuals, such as Henry Giroux and Andrew Ross endorsed it.

This blog, All Education Matters, will be digitally archived by the Library of Congress in November of 2017.

About me

Author of Solving the Student Loan Crisis: Dreams, Diplomas & a Lifetime of Debt (New Insights Press) - now available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
Founder and Executive Director of All Education Matters(AEM), a 501(c)(4); I am a freelance journalist for The Huffington Post, The Loop 21, and Hypervocal. My work has appeared in USA Today, Truthout.org, The New England Journal of Higher Education, etc.
Recipient of journalism grant from the Economic Hardship and Reporting Project (EHRP) to cover a story about suicides and student loan debt (published by the Huffington Post and on the EHRP site; edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Garvy Rivlin) - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/c-cryn-johannsen/student-loan-debt-suicides_b_1638972.html